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Sound Clip: Number Stations
Number Stations (shortwave radio stations of unknown origin) have been reported since World War I and continue to this day. No one knows what their reason is though many people suspect they are coded messages used for espionage (though no country has admitted this). The broadcasts are usually a female voice (though male voices have been heard) and they generally broadcast streams of numbers, words, or letters. They are sometimes apparently random, and other times organized. In the 90′s, amateur enthusiasts tracked the source of one number station to a US military base. The FCC refused to comment.
Ha, these are dead interesting, and spooky. The conet project is very cool, you can download it for free. I have never managed to hear one, despite lengthy dial turning on the old SW set i have! I made a nice droney spooky voices piece of music out of samples from the connet project mp3 tho, nice and soothing and spooky in equal measure!
Those are some interesting ideas about coded messages. Makes me think of John Nash from the movie Beautiful Mind. Anyway, it would be interesting to find how true that is or if it is just paranoia. Maybe someday we’ll find out.
I’ve heard a relation to one-time pads:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-time_pad
Though the idea of the whole number station leaves a lot for the imagination and that’s the best part of it!